The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jammu

Indian soldiers were patrolling the streets in two districts of Kashmir Saturday after protesters clashed with police in a row over transfer of land in the Muslim region to Hindus.

The army was deployed after more than two dozen people were injured as angry demonstrators attacked government buildings and torched a police post late Friday in Jammu, the Hindu-majority winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state.

Protesters and the local media said two people were killed in police firing, but police attributed the deaths to "gang rivalry".

"The army conducted a flag march in sensitive areas of Jammu city and Samba town and made announcements from public address system asking people to stay indoors," defence spokesman S.D Goswami said.

The Kashmir government's decision to provide land to a Hindu trust had sparked more than a week of rioting by furious Muslims, leaving six dead and hundreds injured.

The government went back on the decision to allocate land to Hindu pilgrims, sparking the current protests in Hindu areas of the state. The state government collapsed last month after its main ally withdrew support over the issue.

Meanwhile, Police opened fire Friday on hundreds of rioting Hindus, angry over a recent government decision to not transfer land to a shrine in Indian Kashmir, police said. Two people were killed.

The two protesters died in a hospital in Jammu city after sustaining bullet injuries during the protest, said Ramesh Kumar, a police officer. Four people were also wounded and were in serious condition, he said.

Last month, the government in Jammu, India's only Muslim-majority state, decided to award about 100 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust that maintains the Amarnath shrine, a revered Hindu site.

The state government was forced to revoke that order after a week of often violent protests, in which six people were killed and hundreds wounded, by Muslim Kashmiris who denounced the move as an attempt to build Hindu settlements in the area and alter the demographics in the state.

But the cancellation set off protests by Hindus on Friday.

Kumar said police fired into the crowd after they were besieged by rock-throwing, angry protesters at Samba, a town on the outskirts of Jammu city. At least five policemen were also wounded during the clashes.

Reuters, Colombo

The premiers of India and Pakistan meet on Saturday in a worsening atmosphere of bomb attacks on Indian targets that New Delhi says has sent their four-year-old peace process to its lowest point.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will send a strong message to his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gillani as the two try to salvage talks after a string of bombs hit Indian cities and its embassy in Kabul last month, together killing over 100 people.

India also blames Pakistan for a breach of a 2003 ceasefire on its de facto border in disputed Kashmir, and accuses its spy agency of involvement in the Kabul attack, in which two senior diplomats were among 58 people killed.

The Kabul attack, the ceasefire breach, and media speculation about Pakistani links to the bomb attacks on Indian cities have all contributed to the worsening atmosphere.

India's top foreign ministry official Shiv Shankar Menon said on Friday the talks were at their lowest point in four years.

"It's a very tense atmosphere," said a senior Indian diplomat. "We will want to know if the new civilian government (in Pakistan) is aware of what's going on," the official said, hinting Pakistan's political masters had no oversight on their military spy agency.

The two prime ministers are meeting on the sidelines of a two-day South Asian summit beginning on Saturday. The atmosphere of unease between two of the region's biggest members has affected the summit, where terrorism would dominate the otherwise central theme of trade and social cooperation.

Menon said the prime ministerial talks were aimed at reducing tensions that had vitiated the atmosphere.

"That is why we are talking to Pakistan, that's why we are carrying on these conversations," Menon said.

The two sides began a peace initiative four years ago, after coming close to a fourth war in 2002, but the process has sputtered because of political turmoil in Pakistan and, more recently, after the bombings on Indian interests.

AFP, Colombo

Heavy fighting broke out in northern Sri Lanka on the eve of a South Asian summit in the capital, leaving at least 14 government soldiers and 38 rebels killed, a military official said Saturday.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) offered stiff resistance to a military advance in the Mallavi area, deep inside rebel-held territory on Friday, spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said.

"Terrorists have lobbed hundreds of mortars in order to slow down the advancing soldiers," the defence ministry said.

The latest clashes came as Sri Lanka hosted a two-day summit of the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in the capital Colombo on Saturday.

The defence ministry said helicopter gunships were deployed to provide cover for ground troops engaged in the battle with the Tigers in the island's north.

The Tamil Tigers said they had resisted a major military onslaught against them and claimed killing 30 government soldiers and wounding another 60.

The pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website reported that the Tigers had also seized a troop carrier that was trying to evacuate wounded soldiers. The guerrillas did not give their casualties.

Friday's toll raises the number of rebels killed by government soldiers to 5,474, while 492 soldiers have died in combat since January, according to a defence ministry tally.

Casualty claims from either side cannot be verified as the ministry blocks journalists from visiting the frontlines.

The fighting is taking place 250 kilometres (160 miles) north of the capital, but there has recently been a string of attacks on Colombo that the government has blamed on the rebels.

The LTTE had offered a unilateral ceasefire for the summit, but Colombo brushed off the proposal and stepped up attacks against rebel positions in the north.

The Tigers have been fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the majority Sinhalese nation since 1972.

AP, Islamabad

A Pakistani spokeswoman conceded Friday that the government needs to root out Taliban sympathizers from its main intelligence agency, but officials rejected allegations that the spies helped plan a bloody bombing at the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan.

Government spokeswoman Sherry Rehman said there are "probably" still individual agents whose ideological convictions were formed in the 1980s, when the ISI intelligence agency marshaled Islamic warriors to battle Soviet troops in Afghanistan with U.S. support.

Such agents "act on their own in ways that are not in convergence" with Pakistan's interests or policies, Rehman said. "We need to identify these people and weed them out." The statement was the first acknowledgment by Pakistan's new government that there may be pro-Taliban operatives in the intelligence service. But in a reflection of the sensitivity of the issue, Rehman later changed her statement to maintain the problems at ISI were in the past.

The conflicting comments will do little to build confidence in the 4-month-old administration's efforts to tackle Islamic extremism - a huge challenge facing Pakistan's first civilian-led government after eight years of military rule under President Pervez Musharraf.

Rehman's initial statement came after mounting U.S. and Indian allegations that ISI operatives are helping militant groups involved in the growing insurgency in Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported Friday that American intelligence agencies concluded ISI agents were involved in the July 7 embassy attack in the Afghan capital, which killed about 60 people.

The Times, citing unidentified U.S. government officials, said the conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq described the report as "total rubbish," insisting there was no evidence linking the ISI to the Kabul bombing.

"The foreign newspapers keep writing such things against ISI, and we reject these allegations," he said.

Afghan leaders have long maintained the ISI is backing the Taliban-led insurgency, and Afghanistan's spy agency accused its Pakistani counterpart in a recent attempt to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

AP, Beijing

China's defense minister says Taiwan's domestic situation has undergone "positive changes," in a notable softening of rhetoric reflecting satisfaction with the election of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou.

In an address on the eve of Friday's Army Day, Liang Guanglie reiterated Beijing's goal of political unification with the self-governing island that it claims is an integral part of Chinese territory.

But his comments were free of the bellicose tone that has sometimes characterized Beijing's pronouncements toward Taiwan, which has refused Beijing's unification advances since splitting from the mainland amid civil war in 1949. "The Taiwan situation has undergone positive changes. The development of relations between the two sides faces a rare historical opportunity," Liang said.

Since taking office in May, Taiwanese President Ma has approved the first weekend direct flights in almost 60 years, opened Taiwan to mainland Chinese tourists and relaxed investment restrictions, bringing about a watershed change in relations that were often severely strained under his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian.

In July, the two sides restarted formal talks that were suspended in 1999, signing a raft of agreements and pledging increased cooperation in the future.

Despite the progress, the sides remain far apart in the military and political spheres, with China's 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army continuing a massive upgrade aimed in part at preparing for a conflict over Taiwan if the island seeks permanent independence.

Beijing also fiercely opposes Taiwan's close ties with the United States, as well as its desire for diplomatic recognition and participation in the United Nations and other international bodies.

AFP, Washington

Iran is heading towards a major breakthrough in its nuclear weapons capability, Israel's deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Friday.

"Iran is continuing to advance toward a military nuclear capability and is heading towards a major breakthrough," the Iranian-born Mofaz told a think tank after talks in Washington with US officials.

"For us such a situation that Iran will have a nuclear power is an existential threat and from the state of Israel point of view, it is unacceptable," Mofaz told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"Our estimation is that already by (2009) Iran will reach enrichment capability and as soon as 2010 will have option to reach (uranium production) at military levels," he said in broken English.

He charged that Iran was playing for time in talks aimed at halting uranium enrichment with the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain-the permanent UN Security Council members-and Germany, the so-called P5-plus-1.

"One thing is clear is Iranians are continuing their policy of buying time and so far they are succeeding," he said.

"We all know time is a decisive element in our ability to change the picture and remove the Iranian threat," Mofaz said.

AFP, Tbilisi

Six people from Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia were killed Friday by sniper and mortar fire from Georgian positions, the rebel province's government said.

"Six people have been killed and seven have been wounded" after Georgian forces fired on the rebel capital Tskhinvali with rifles and mortars, the rebel government said in a statement posted on its website.

Lana Parasayeva, a spokeswoman for the rebel government, told AFP that three members of South Ossetia's security forces were killed and four injured by sniper fire from Georgian positions. Georgian forces later opened fire on Tskhinvali with heavy weapons, the rebels said, killing another three civilians and wounding three more.

"A mortar platoon of the Georgian Defence Ministry is purposefully shelling the southern part of Tskhinvali. The northern outskirts of the city are being fired upon as well," the rebel government said in a statement on its website. "The South Ossetian side has started returning fire."

South Ossetia's de facto president, Eduard Kokoity, told Interfax news agency that "our response to Tbilisi's aggressive actions will be very tough and hard-hitting.

"We reserve the right to strike Georgian cities. We have something that can reach them," he said.

Georgian Interior Ministry Spokesman Shota Utiashvili denied that Georgian positions had fired first.

AP, Baghdad

The U.S. military said Saturday it has released more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq so far this year - more than in all of 2007 - as it continues to try phase out its running of Iraqi prisons.

The military said about 21,000 people remained in custody, and it is currently releasing about 45 detainees and detaining 30 a day.

The United States wants to transfer the detainees to Iraqi control. Reaching that goal has been slowed partly by the lack of adequate Iraqi prison space and trained guards. More than 8,900 people were released from detention last year.

The U.S. military separated moderate detainees from extremists and instituted religious, educational and vocational programs over the past year to try to rehabilitate less dangerous prisoners. It also increased releases under amnesty programs.

"Due to changes in the conduct of detainee operations and programs to prepare detainees for reintegration into society, we have not only gone over 10,000 releases, but our re-internment rate is less than 1 percent," said Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

The U.S. military says its detention system is authorized by a U.N. resolution under which the Iraqi government allows U.S. troops to arrest people at will. U.S. military attorneys say it also complies with international laws covering warfare and was created in "the spirit" of the Geneva Conventions.

Commanders say they are entitled to hold any prisoner until the detainee is no longer considered a threat to U.S. forces. Local law and court rulings do not apply, they add.

Rights groups have criticized U.S. detention policy as a misrepresentation of international law, which they say requires some form of legal process to detain someone.

The right of the U.S. to detain Iraqi citizens has been one of the contentious areas of debate with the Iraqis over a new security agreement that would keep U.S. forces in the country after a U.N. mandate expires at year's end.

Many Iraqi officials want the country's courts to have sole responsibility for arresting and detaining Iraqi citizens.

AP, Gaza City

A smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border collapsed, killing at least five Palestinians and wounding 18, Palestinian security and hospital officials said Saturday.

The tunnel collapsed late Friday, near the Gaza border town of Rafah.

A wide network of tunnels runs under the border and is used to bring supplies into Gaza. The territory has been virtually cut off from the world since June 2007 when Hamas seized control by force. Both Israel and Egypt have enforced the closure of Gaza.

Israel has said that Hamas' rulers use the tunnel to bring in weapons and cash, and has urged Egypt to do more to stop the smuggling. In recent months, Egypt has begun cracking down on the smugglers.

Since the beginning of the year, 27 Palestinians have been killed in tunnel collapses, including the five killed late Friday.

AFP, Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda vowed on Saturday to fight price hikes and boost cooperation with Asian countries, as he attempted to breathe new life into his government after a cabinet reshuffle. Fukuda called the first meeting of his new cabinet members after they were sworn in by Emperor Akihito at the imperial palace, government officials said.

"I will firmly take emergency measures for people who are seriously affected by abnormal oil prices," Fukuda said in a statement.

"I will also carry out flexible economic management by closely watching prices of commodities," he said.

Fukuda named a new cabinet filled with heavyweights on Friday, vowing to jump-start a lacklustre economy in a last-ditch bid to revive waning public support. The popularity of the 72-year-old centrist has plunged since he took over last September as voters have been left feeling worse off than a year ago because of rising global oil and food prices.

Public support increased only slightly as a result of the cabinet shake-up, rising to 31.5 percent from 26.8 percent in a July survey, a poll conducted by Kyodo News on Friday and Saturday showed.

"I will carry out people-oriented reforms by tackling pending issues one by one," Fukuda said. "I sincerely hope that people will give us understanding and cooperation."

AFP, Tehran

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is due in Tehran Saturday to discuss the Islamic republic's nuclear issue as well as matters of mutual interest, local media reported.

Assad during the two-day visit is to meet with high-ranking Iranian officials to discuss regional and international issues, state-run television reported.

Iran's ambassador to Syria Ahmad Moussavi said on Friday talks would include Iran's nuclear programme, which Western countries claim hides an ambition to develop atomic weapons but which Tehran says is purely for peaceful purposes.

"During the visit of the Syrian president, who will meet with Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the two sides will discusst (Tehran's) nuclear issue," Moussavi was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

The visit will be Assad's third to Iran-Syria's staunch regional ally since the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005. His last visit dates back to February 2007.

The alliance between Iran and Syria, stretching back more than three decades, was strengthened in 2006 with the signing of a military cooperation agreement.

The television report said that Iran is currently involved in a range of projects in Syria worth a total of around 1.3 billion dollars.

AFP, Vienna

The UN's atomic watchdog approved an inspections agreement Friday with India that is key to finalising a US-India nuclear cooperation deal that critics say undermines non-proliferation efforts.

The so-called safeguards agreement will subject Indian nuclear facilities to IAEA supervision and is a pre-condition to a deal under which the United States will supply New Delhi with civilian nuclear fuel and technology.

"I believe the agreement is good for India, and good for the world," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told journalists after the meeting. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, reacting from Colombo, hailed what he called a "milestone" in India's cooperation with the international community in the peaceful use of atomic energy. The White House also reacted positively, spokesman Gordon Johndroe saying the move "will welcome India into the non-proliferation mainstream and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs in an environmentally friendly way."

The next step, he said, "will be to proceed to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) where we hope to move quickly on revising the guidelines that will enable civil nuclear cooperation with India before submitting the agreement for congressional approval later this year."

India still needs a waiver from the NSG -- 45 states exporting nuclear fuel and technology-and ratification by the US Congress before the deal can go through.

The rules of the NSG, which is expected to hold its next meeting on August 21 in Vienna, ban trade with states, like India, that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

But the chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, remained confident that New Delhi would get clearance.

"We are of course approaching all friendly countries but we do hope that the NSG will similarly grant a clean unconditional exemption for India," he told reporters in Vienna.

"(The deal) is certainly important for India but it's also important for the world at large because I think it meets the twin objectives of energy security as well as global climate change-related issues and concerns," he said.

Reuters, Tehran

Iran has accused the United States of double standards following a nuclear deal with India, state television said on Saturday, just before a deadline set by the West in a dispute over Tehran's own atomic ambitions.

Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off on imposing more U.N. sanctions on Iran if Tehran would freeze any expansion of its nuclear work.

That would suggest a deadline of Saturday, although Russia, one of the six powers facing Iran, has opposed a deadline and Iran dismissed the idea of having two weeks to reply.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power programme. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, denies the charge.

"We have not had any discussion (or) agreement of the so-called timeline of two weeks," Iran's representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the state Press TV satellite station.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was due to arrive in Tehran on Saturday, a few weeks after he said he would respond to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's request and use his good ties with Iran to help resolve its stand-off with the West.

Assad was expected to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior officials during a two-day visit.

AFP, Belgrade

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was protected by the United States until a CIA phone bug caught him breaking the terms of his 'deal', Serb newspaper Blic reported Saturday, quoting a US intelligence source.

Partly echoing what Karadzic himself told the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in his opening written submission, the paper claims Karadzic was secretly granted immunity in return for keeping a low profile. "Karadzic, indicted for genocide and war crimes, was under the US protection until 2000, when the CIA intercepted his telephone conversation that clearly proved he personally chaired a meeting of his old political party," the daily quoted a "well-informed US intelligence source" as saying. In a submission to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Karadzic said the US peace negotiator in Bosnia, Richard Holbrooke, had promised he would avoid trial if he withdrew from public life.

Holbrooke has insisted that no such deal existed.

The Blic source said: "I'm not sure there was a written document confirming so, but I do have Holbrooke's admission of verbal guarantees given to Karadzic from the highest level of the US."

"During the year 2000, at the time of the (November general) elections in Bosnia, the CIA learned that Karadzic was still leading the SDS (the Serbian Democratic Party, founded by Karadzic), despite their deal that he was not to interfere in political life," the source added, cited by the newspaper.

Reuters, Buenos Aires

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, who is emerging from a four-month political crisis over farm policy, has scheduled the first presidential media conference in five years for Saturday afternoon.

Fernandez and her husband and predecessor ex-President Nestor Kirchner have had a stated policy of not taking questions from groups of reporters, saying they prefer to talk directly to the people in televised speeches.

The president, a poised and powerful speaker who shares her husband's combative style, has seen her popularity ratings slump due to the farm policy conflict and high inflation. Fernandez, who became Argentina's first elected woman president in December after a long Senate career, gave only a handful of one-on-one media interviews before taking office.

Local media have harshly criticized the center-left president over her farm policy, rising prices, and for concentrating decision-making in a small group of ministers.

Fernandez and Kirchner, who have led during a major economic boom, routinely blame the media for the country's problems and in recent months have honed in on media group Grupo Clarin, saying it has tried to undermine the government.

Fernandez does make one exception. She gives special access to satirical television news show CQC, which stands for Caiga Quien Caiga, loosely translated as No Holds Barred, and routinely jokes around with reporters from the show.

AFP, Sydney

A Qantas 767 was forced to return to Sydney shortly after take off Saturday when the pilot detected a hydraulic leak in the wing, the airline said, denying reports the jet made an emergency landing.

In the third safety scare involving Qantas aircraft in just over a week, the airline said the Manila-bound flight with 200 passengers on board landed at Sydney Airport about 3:00pm after the problem was detected. "It landed without incident after the captain became aware that the aircraft had a hydraulic leak," a Qantas spokeswoman told AFP.

"It was not an emergency landing." The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sky News Australia and Australian Associated Press all reported the incident involved an emergency landing.

The Qantas spokeswoman said fire engines were on standby on the tarmac as a precaution but the passengers, who have since left for Manila on a replacement aircraft, were never in any danger.

She said the pilot made the determination about whether or not a landing qualified as an emergency and reports he requested a priority landing in Sydney were incorrect.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority's Peter Gibson said air traffic controllers on the ground in Sydney initially spotted the problem.

"Air traffic control noticed what they thought was smoke coming from the back of the aircraft," he told Channel Nine television.

"What it turned out to be was a hydraulic leak of hydraulic fluid coming out of the hydraulic system creating a fine spray at the back of the aircraft that looked like smoke."